


Never Look Back

by ravenously



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Secret Wars Battleworlds, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Planet Hulk, Self-cest, Seriously waht the fuck was the queerbaiting mess we got????????, but they don't actually kiss it's just implied he's family now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:51:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4770725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenously/pseuds/ravenously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Steve needed was Bucky back in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Look Back

When he first found Bucky, he kept him away from his counterpart- He wasn’t sure how he’d react. After the vitriolic  _fire_  he spun about Bucky, back in the Red King’s fortress, he wasn’t sure if Doc Green wouldn’t just hulk out right there and attack him. Even if his Bucky looked different, acted different. 

Different was relative, these days. Everyone was different than Before, and a small vocabulary difference and change of clothes wasn’t going to make anything weirder.

But after their second night together, after the fifth time Bucky asked him to explain what the  _fuck_  happened, Steve finally broke down and explained it to him. They were laying beneath the crook of Devil’s body, Bucky trying to see if it was possible to braid Steve’s hair with only one arm as Steve told him about his journey.

How he traveled the Greenland with a gamma-infested Hulk named Doc Green. The perils they faced and the moral dilemma Steve had, trying to figure out what was right. The way he spun the story was beautiful and poetic, like an epic of days old, before God Doom was around to taint the truth in all things. 

The only hard part was when he had to describe the arm. Finding out about Bucky’s ‘death.’ Those emotions, even if they were misplaced, were still hard. Raw. They didn’t matter in the long run- An arm didn’t mean a death and he found Bucky, saved him from rotting in a cellar with no arm and no food- but it was still hard. 

Bucky was good- He held him and kissed his cheeks and tears and promised to never leave him again.

He didn’t yell or hiss at him for wanting to kill the gamma-infected Steve. Instead he nodded, his face twisting up as though he smelled something unpleasant. Steve expected him to curse the man out, to want him throw him to the dogs. Or maybe the hulks. But all he said was, “I want to meet this Doctor.”

Steve snorted in surprise, thinking he was joking. “Of course. And next you will want to bed with our red brother.” He patted a hand against Devil’s flank, watching as he snuffled and snorted and grunted in agitation of being woken up. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and gave a settling pat to reassure Devil that he didn’t have to get up. “I am  _serious_ , Steve. He lost his Bucky. Look at what  _you_  accomplished when you lost me. You leveled an entire kingdom to preserve my honor.”

“He believes you made him weak!” Steve all but spat, and Bucky had to settle him, pull him against Bucky’s neck and hold the back of his head in close. 

“Maybe he does. But would you not feel corrupted by the gamma and feel the same way? To ignore the pain in your heart? Do not forget that he is you and you were once him.”

Steve snorted but closed his eyes. “I wanted to burn the world down when I thought you were dead. Level every kingdom just to find a percentage of revenge and honor for you.” 

“Don’t you see how each that could be twisted into hatred towards me? I bet- I imagine- Your Doc Green doesn’t actually feel so harsh.” Bucky’s voice was soft, smooth as though to ease Steve down from violent thoughts. 

It wasn’t that Bucky was the more lenient, the softer and more innocent of the two. No, because in battle, it was  _Bucky_  who was known as cruel, killing and ushering in a level of violence that wasn’t necessary. But when Steve  _did_  get worked up, almost nothing could bring him down from his self-righteous anger. Except Bucky. Who could soothe him almost immediately, placating a wild beast. 

They weren’t always wild. Weren’t always warriors. But it’s what God Doom made them, and the feral behavior is what has kept them alive all these years.

And then the other Steve. Doc Green. Who seemed to take pleasure out of messing with Steve’s mind, of playing his emotions like a fiddle. He was a cruel, rude man, and it had taken all of Steve’s willpower not to kill him.

“You really want to meet him.” Steve said, frowning.

“Maybe we can help him. He sounds lonely. And I can never turn down a Steve in need.” Bucky’s lips curved upwards and Steve moved to pull his hair back, moving in to nuzzle at his jaw and just. Breathe. Sit. Think it through. 

“Alright. You win, as usual. We will go to his domain tomorrow.” 

–

Normally, Steve’s eyes were only on Bucky. It was always about Bucky, even when he didn’t have time to think about him. But right now, observing the scene, his eyes were entirely on his other self. 

He wasn’t green, which was a good start. He was human, looking both just like Steve and like a completely different person all at once. Smaller, more reminiscent of what Steve was like before him and Bucky joined the army, but still muscled and lean. He had goggles clamped on his forehead, pushing his short hair in multiple directions; Steve couldn’t remember the last time his hair was short. Not since God Doom, for sure.

His eyes were deeper set than Steve’s. Maybe it was a natural physical difference between them- Or maybe it was a result of the gamma experiments. There were several differences that way, but his eyes were the most noticeable. Darker, and the emotions inside them were hard to categorize. It was as though Doc Green had given up on the righteousness and strength that Steve thrived on, even still. 

And now…. Now. His eyes were full of hatred and anger, vicious vitriol befitting a man who was  _betrayed_. And this wasn’t even the Bucky that this Steve knew. This was a warrior, a gladiator in the most basic definition of the word, not the New York native Bucky that he would have known. 

Steve almost intervened the meeting when he saw the green flash in his other self’s eyes, bristling and hand falling to the ax at his side, but then the green left, the anger left, and all that was left was hopelessness. Fear. Worry.  _Guilt_. 

“You look much more civilized than either myself or Steve.” Bucky said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

The other Steve’s eyes tracked the smile and then fell to the one arm, red and raw at the end of the stump. Just taking him in with too many emotions to process. Maybe this  _was_  a good idea, Steve mused.

“…All subjective.” Doc Green replied, his voice hollow and for once, devoid of that usual smug arrogance that made Steve want to hit him. “You lost certain portions of the humanity I kept. And I…. Lost the others that you and your Steven retained.” He fidgeted, hands in his pockets and then out, then in, constantly moving like he was afraid of standing still. Of having nothing to do but stare at this amalgamation of a Bucky he both knew and didn’t. 

Bucky looked between him and then his own Steve, tilting his head slightly. “You two think you are so separate from each other. But you’re still Steve, under all the green grime and red blood of war. “ Both of them did nothing but blink at him, making Bucky smile just a little more. “You are both still Steve. Wonderful, beautiful,  _here_. “ He stepped forward, and the Doc took a step back. 

Which just prompted Bucky to step all the faster, catch Steve’s bicep with his hand. “Do not run away from your past. The world is a horrible, terrible place, and we have all suffered. You’re not mad at your Bucky- You’re mad at yourself. For failing to save him.”

Steve swallowed and blinked, opening his mouth like he was about to say something, and then closing it again. It seemed, then, that the gamma-infested counterpart, who so loved to talk and mock and chatter away, was rendered mute with shock. Only Bucky could do it. 

“But, my friend.” Bucky continued, stepping forward, into Doc Green’s space, inches from his face. “I am right here. There is no need to blame the world anymore. You don’t need to be alone anymore.”

“I-” But he couldn’t speak because Bucky leaned in to brush against his lips, giving a sweet, chaste kiss that spoke only of promises and gentle reassurances. 

Steve rolled his eyes, let his hand drift away from his ax, and just watched the scene, realizing that perhaps this insufferable Steve from the Greenland would become part of their small little family, someone to protect and cherish and save. 

When Bucky pulled back from his lips, Steve’s eyes were glistening and wide, before the tears spilled over and he pushed himself into Bucky’s neck, evidently not caring that this Bucky was taller, stronger and thicker than his own, just caring that it was _Bucky_ , and that Bucky cared. 

That was all that mattered, after all, in the wasteland of the worlds. That Bucky cared and they were together.

**Author's Note:**

> Planet Hulk was one of the most amazing runs I've seen in a comic. Yes, I'm new to comics, and no, I didn't like everything about it. I felt it was extremely baiting, and the ending, while amazing and imaginative, made my heart cry out because I wanted more Steve/Bucky interaction. 
> 
> Regardless, I also felt for Doc a lot. So here's some fixer-up-er's. Maybe I'll write more eventually. 
> 
> Please feel free to find me on [Tumblr](buckycurtis.tumblr.com)


End file.
